by Amber Carew
"Yeah? I don't think Derek would have let you."
She glanced toward Derek, who stood in the background, leaning casually against the wall, his arms crossed and an amused grin on his face.
"Okay, this time, but for all I know, if it hadn't been for Derek, you would have picked up a strange guy in a bar."
Her eyes blazed to life again. "Who the hell do you think you are? Don't judge me."
He held his hands at his sides, palms toward her. "Janine, I'm not judging you. I just worry about you. I want you to be safe."
She sucked in a deep breath. "You sound like Ben."
"Your brother loved you very much. He just wanted you to be careful."
Janine had always been a free spirit. Ben had worried that she was too naïve and that men would take advantage of her. He'd been protective and watchful. A typical older brother.
"Yeah. And ain't it ironic that despite all his urging to be careful and stay safe, that he's the one who's dead now."
The bitterness in her voice showed the depth of pain she still carried at her brother's death.
"He was a cop," he said gently. "It happens."
He saw the pain flash across her blue eyes, but she quickly
quelled it.
"Yeah, so I'm told. The point is, life is a crapshoot and I could live my life closed up in a shell, never experience anything, and still get killed crossing the road one day. Or I can simply choose to live my life to the fullest every day." She stepped toward him and poked his chest with her finger. "I choose the latter. And not you or anybody else has anything to say about it."
With that, she turned around and walked away, her sweet ass swaying in a way that made his groin fill with heat. Oh,
God, this woman drove him insane.
Janine strode to Derek's bedroom and closed the door, barely blinking back the tears springing to her eyes. She leaned against the door and sucked in a deep breath. She caught her reflection in the mirror. Black studded leather encasing her breasts, the swell of soft flesh pushing over the top, a skimpy black triangle covering her pussy and nothing covering her ass.
Damn, she must have looked like an absolute fool. He thought of her as a bimbo who didn't know what was best for her, and standing there spouting at him, looking like this, would only have accentuated that opinion.
She'd like to think she didn't care, but she did. She'd always respected Sloan, ever since they were kids. Ben and Sloan had been best friends in school, and Janine had always had a bit of a crush on him. Actually, more like a tempestuous, wanting to throw herself at his feet and give him her virginity kind of crush. He'd been her first kiss. A kiss that had totally blown her mind and set the bar against which she'd measured every kiss that had come since.
Knowing they were playing with fire, however, they had both backed off . Ben was Sloan's best friend. She was Ben's little sister. If they had continued beyond that kiss, they would never have been able to keep their hands off each other, and there was no way Sloan could have lived with himself if he had defiled his best friend's little sister. Janine clasped her hands together and her finger automatically found her ring and stroked the blue stone.
After Ben died-- shot by some thug during a holdup-- Sloan took over Ben's role as her protector. He'd also decided to become a cop. He seemed to thrive on the rules, and on getting some sense of bringing order to the streets, but she wished he could have just been a man-- someone to hold her, to help her grieve. Someone to love her and, as much as it wrangled her to think it, to take care of her. Not by imposing rules and limitations on her, but by being with her, holding her. Loving her.
After Ben's death, Sloan seemed incapable of touching her. Even at the funeral, when she'd hugged him and cried on his shoulder, he'd stiffened and patted her back, clearly uncomfortable being that close to her. She wasn't stupid. She knew it was probably because he felt it would be a betrayal to Ben. Somewhere along the way, Sloan had equated having sex with Janine to hurting her.
Once Sloan became a full-fledged cop, he'd enlisted his buddies to watch over her, too. It got so that she couldn't turn a corner or talk to a guy without a cop showing up with an eagle eye on her. It made it tough to get a boyfriend.
Finally, she'd left L.A. She needed to find her own way, needed to get away from Sloan and his overprotectiveness-- and her intense yet unfulfilled yearning for him.
Now she had her own gaggle of uniformed men around, but not to protect her. And she'd come to really dig handcuff s.
A knock sounded on the door behind her and she jumped.
"Janine, it's Derek."
She hesitated, her hands balled at her sides.
"Sloan's gone. May I come in?"
She turned and opened the door, then stepped back to let him in. As Derek stared at her, understanding glowing in his warm brown eyes, she feared he saw too much. He drew her against his solid body, and she wrapped her arms around his waist, then rested her head against his chest.
"I didn't know you had a brother. Sloan told me how he died." He tightened his arms around her. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart."
The tears welled, and one escaped and fell on his chest, leaving a damp splotch on his uniform shirt. He stroked her hair behind her ear, then kissed the top of her head.
"If you want to talk about it . . ."
Ah, damn. She didn't want to dredge up the pain. She didn't want him to see her vulnerability.
"Sure, I'd like to talk." She stroked her hand down his solid washboard stomach, then grabbed the tag of his zipper and tugged it down. She dipped her hand inside and stroked his bulging cock through the cotton of his boxers. "I want to talk about bringing out this bad boy"-- she slipped her hand inside his boxers and wrapped her fingers around his swelling erection--"and you shoving me against the wall and driving into me." She squeezed. "Hard."
SECRET WEAPON is available in print in most bookstores, and in e-book form at most on-line bookstores.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
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